[F. irreg. deriv. of tabac tobacco (1612 in Hatz.-Darm.).] A group of smokers who meet in club fashion; a ‘tobacco-parliament.’
1819. (title) The Englishman’s Mentor. The Picture of the Palais Royal; describing its spectacles, gaming rooms, coffee houses, restaurateurs, tabagies [etc.].
1858. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., V. vii. (1872), II. 114. Friedrich Wilhelm … had his Tabaks-Collegium, Tobacco-College, Smoking Congress, Tabagie. Ibid., 115. Tabagies were not uncommon among German Sovereigns of that epoch.
1885. Daily News, 28 Nov., 5/3 (Stanf.). A sort of tabagie (to use a word which Mr. Carlyle has made familiar to English readers) or Tobacco Parliament.
